The three branches of the AEQ approach (method, breathing, and relationships) are intended to help us understand the actual condition, development, and structure of overall emotional maturity. They allow us to confront shortcomings and inefficiencies in the use of emotions when dealing with states and problems created by time and life itself. This part of the AEQ approach can only be learned through cooperation with an AEQ teacher, who, during their own teacher training, develops and raises their own overall emotional maturity and thus becomes someone capable of showing and guiding a client with lower emotional maturity towards a higher level. This enables the gradual elimination of chronic inefficiencies in managing life situations and problems, which then gradually removes the causes of more severe and persistent forms of chronic pain, conditions, and illness. This essential part of the AEQ approach is comprised of the AEQ method, AEQ breathing, and AEQ relationships.
In addition to addressing sensorimotor amnesia (SMA), this process also eliminates sensorimotor detachment and sensorimotor illusion, which are more intense forms of SMA and cannot be resolved without the involvement of an AEQ teacher.
SMA inhibits our creativity and curiosity in behavior and in influencing life, as it distorts our self-perception to the point that we do not notice or properly recognize behaviors that harm us and fail to understand how they affect us in the long term. SMA enables us to downplay the severity of our behavior and to create strong enough excuses and “reasons” to convince ourselves that our actions are appropriate and not the cause of chronic issues—so we can continue with them. SMA affects us in such a way that we behave like a frog in a pot that doesn’t notice the water slowly heating up until it’s too late. Despite the developed conscious part of our nervous system (the neocortex), which frogs don’t have, we behave just as instinctively and predictably, failing to use our rational capacity to realize how the present leads us to chronic problems in the future. SMA reduces our ability to see depth and breadth. It narrows and flattens our perspective on life and prevents us from understanding that behaviors that may not harm us now could, in a few years, bring about chronic issues.
We do not notice, for example, that our left side is tense, causing us to lean left and place more weight on the left leg while unconsciously tilting our head to the right to balance the torso’s asymmetry. After years of such posture, which becomes normalized by us and our environment, the likelihood of chronic issues in the left leg, right shoulder and arm, and right side of the head increases significantly.
This should greatly concern us. How can we, in the present, behave like a frog in boiling water, even though we are humans with the most advanced nervous system, capable of predicting the future and learning from the past? Chronic conditions are only possible if we cannot see a wide enough picture to recognize what is leading us into helplessness. We learn to narrow our perspective as much as possible because we fear the truth that a broader perspective would reveal. Therefore, we do everything to avoid having the time and energy required to maintain such a broad view and face the reality of our current state.
We are the only species capable of retrieving memories and adding new understanding, experiences, and data collected in the meantime. In doing so, we can gradually change memories from the past and their influence on the present—provided we have the proper knowledge, tools (AEQ exercises), and AEQ teachers. This transforms the foundation of our self-image and alters the influence of the past on the present. Accordingly, our future also changes, with fewer unwanted chronic conditions.
We are the only species that can, through recalling memories, add new understanding, experiences, and data obtained in the meantime. This allows us to gradually change the influence of the past on the present—provided we use proper knowledge, tools (AEQ exercises), and AEQ teachers—and thereby alter the foundations of our self-image. As a result, we change how the past affects our present. Consequently, our future becomes different, with fewer unwanted chronic conditions.
